3 reasons why David Cameron must get rid of Owen Paterson

David
Cameron went from promising the “greenest government ever” to appointing a
climate change denier, Owen Paterson, as environment secretary. With swathes of
our country submerged under water after the most extreme flooding this country
has had since at least 1766, enough is enough. Here are three reasons why David
Cameron must get rid of him – and put somebody in charge who believes in taking
an evidence-led approach.

1) Experts said we
should increase flood budgets – but ministers cut them instead

The Committee
on Climate Change, the independent experts who advised ministers on what’s needed to deal with the climate crisis, have advised the government to increase flood
defence budgets by half a billion pounds to keep pace with what’s required
because of climate change. The Environment Agency too said as far back as 2010, and still
says now, that they need more money to be able to adequately respond to
flooding.

Despite
David Cameron’s initial claims that his government was spending more on flood
defence budgets, his government have been forced to admit they’ve actually cut this funding – and they came under fire from the head of the UK
Statistics Authority for the way they had tried to spin the numbers.

In fact,
Owen Paterson’s department got rid of 550 of his employees working for the
Environment Agency on flood maintenance and preparation.

As the
Committee on Climate Change put it, “cuts
imposed mean floods will happen that could be cost effectively avoided."

2) Experts
said climate change meant increased flood risks – but Owen Paterson disregarded
them, and cut the numbers of staff working on preparing for floods

Owen
Paterson’s department – Defra - did a review of the flood risks to the UK
that concluded a million more homes could be at risk of flooding over the next
15 years because of climate change.

Yet Owen
Paterson’s flood plan explicitly disregards consideration of climate change
as contributor to future flooding, and “assumes that flood risk remains the
same.” (Never mind that polling shows 80% of the public understand the flooding risk is increasing and are concerned about increased flooding in the UK in future.)

Owen
Paterson also cut back the number of his staff working
on understanding and preparing the UK for the impacts of climate change, like
flooding events, from 38 to 6 – and halved the budgets for working on this.

One
senior source inside Paterson’s department told Greenpeace that their Minister
wouldn’t even read a briefing from his team if it contained the words “climate
change” – so blinkered is he by his ideological view that global warming isn’t a
problem. One of his own Cabinet colleagues told the Daily Mail yesterday, “He isn’t climate sceptic, he’s climate stupid.’”

But it seems Paterson isn’t alone in ignoring the
climate change risks. His colleague the Planning Minister Eric Pickles scrapped the obligation
on councils to prepare for how climate
change could affect
their residents – despite the government’s own figures showing a million extra
homes at risk.

3) Experts
said carbon pollution is driving climate change and increasing the risks of
extreme weather – but Owen Paterson ignored them and listened to deniers
instead

The Met
Office’s Chief Scientist said
this weekend that all the evidence points to the extreme rainfall we’ve seen
being linked climate change, and that the UK hasn’t experienced rainfall like
this for at least 248 years. This followed the government’s
former chief science adviser, Sir David King, warning that extreme weather would be an
increasing problem because of climate change. Other world leaders, like President Obama, have already acknowledged that
there would be an increase in extreme weather unless action is taken to cut the
amount of carbon pollution we put into the atmosphere.

In
October The Independent revealed Owen Paterson has not had a
single briefing on climate change from his own science adviser. In September
Professor David MacKay, the Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Energy
and Climate Change, said he had offered to give Paterson a briefing on climate
change but his offer had yet to be taken up.

Yet the
Environment Secretary has felt confident to make a number of climate denier
outbursts. On one occasion he said: “People get very emotional about this subject and I think we should just accept that the climate has been changing for centuries.” On another occasion, speaking on BBC Radio 4, he made numerous scientific errors – neatly rebutted in this blog.

It seems
the vacuum caused by the absence of real science advice is being filled by a notorious network of climate
change deniers.

It’s time for Paterson to go.

What all this shows us is that the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has failed
in his responsibilities at every turn.

It’s
time David Cameron put someone in charge who believes in an evidence-led
approach to climate change and flooding.

To have
a joined-up national strategy to deal with the flooding crisis – David Cameron
must start by putting somebody competent in charge and somebody who is prepared
to acknowledge the climate change threat we must deal with if we’re to keep
trains running, food growing, and the lights on.